the devil exists." Many Christian theologians have interpreted the devil within its original cultural context as a symbol of psychological forces. Many dropped the concept of the devil as an unnecessary assumption: the devil does not add much to solving the problem of evil since, whether or not the angels sinned before men, the question remains how evil entered the world in the first place. Rudolf Bultmann taught that Christians need to reject belief in a literal devil as part of formulating an authentic faith in today's world. In contrast, the works of writers like Jeffrey Burton Russell retain the belief in a literal personal fallen being of some kind. Russell argues that theologians who reject a literal devil (like Bultmann) overlook the fact that the devil is part and parcel of the New Testament from its origins. Christian theologian Karl Barth describes the devil neither as a person nor as a merely psychological force but as nature opposing good. He includes the devil in his threefold cosmology: there is God, God's creation, and nothingness. Nothingness is not absence of existence, but a plane of existence in which God withdraws his creative power. It is depicted as chaos opposing real being, distorting the structure of the cosmos and gaining influence over humanity. In contrast to dualism, Barth argued that opposition to reality entails reality, so that the existence of the devil depends on the existence of God and is not an independent principle. Contemporary views Catholic Church While the Catholic Church has not paid much attention to the devil in the modern period, some contemporary Catholic teachings have begun to re-emphasize the devil. Pope Paul VI expressed concern about the influence of the devil in 1972, stating that: "Satan's smoke has made its way into the Temple of God through some crack". However, John Paul II viewed the defeat of Satan as inevitable. Pope Francis brought renewed focus on the devil in the early 2010s, stating, among many other pronouncements, that "The devil is intelligent, he knows more theology than all the theologians together." Journalist Cindy Wooden commented on the pervasiveness of the devil in Pope Francis' teachings, noting that Francis believes that the devil is real. During a morning homily in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, in 2013, the pontiff said: In 2019, Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Society of Jesus, said that Satan is a